The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume XVI, No. 6 [‎344v] (41/232)

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AN EXPEDITION BETWEEN LAKE RUDOLF AND THE NILE.
skins hung over the back, and a bell hung on a slender cord around the
waist, helped to liven up the men’s appearance. These are the only
people whom I have ever seen wearing a zebra’s tail suspended from the
elbows. Many of the younger girls had rather attractive features and
pretty figures, but I will not mention the appearance of the fair sex
after they get to be twenty. The worst burden which they have to
carry in life, however, seems to be the countless necklaces of beads
which spread over their bosoms to the waist, and the large bracelets and
anklets of ivory, brass, and iron. Their hair is shaved above the ears,
and cut fairly close on the top of the head.
The Magois represented to us that if we went north-east again we
would find a stream of water winding northward about the foot of the
mountains into a bigger river a long way off, but I had no intention of
going to the Sobat and thus leaving my work incompleted. Whenever
I asked one of the natives about the plain to the west, he would draw
his hand across his throat to represent that we must surely die if we
attempted to march in that direction. However, we loaded up all our
water-barrels and started on January 28 in a westerly direction, towards
two mountains which loomed up on the plains. For a short distance
the ground was firm, and we marched along swiftly, but then we came
to the worst cotton soil I ever took men or beasts over. It was se loose
that we sank in it up to our knees at one moment, while the next instant
we stumbled in some crack hidden by a tuft of the coarsest yellow grass.
The intense heat added to our burdens, so that we were glad to camp at
the end of seven hours.
The next day’s march was even worse than the first, and at the end
of it I determined to stop and hunt for water about the two mountains,
which were then near us. At the end of thirty hours the barren
mountains and all the plain for many miles to the west had been scoured
for water, but in vain. My animals had been nearly three days without
food or water, so that there was nothing to do but to look disappointment
in the face, and turn back to Magois. Two of my men found a stream,
before reported by the natives, running north, where they told me there
were many people and signs of cultivation. This was the stream I
have since learned was followed by Captain Wellby to the Sobat. It
starts in the mountains north-east of Magois, and not far away in the
south.
Another of my scouts reported water directly east, and nearer the
Magois, so in the afternoon of January 30 we started off in the direction
indicated. My own Somali had been lying to me, since he had only
seen what appeared to be a promising waterway, and took it for granted
there was water in it without fully satisfying himself on the subject.
Owing to this blunder we had one of the worst marches the next day
that we experienced throughout the journey. From three o’clock in
the morning until all hours the next night the wearied men and animale